The present invention relates to a fill valve for rapidly filling toilet tanks with water, for achieving effective water stoppage and for ready adjustment of water level in the tanks by control of the difference in pressure.
It has been known that a conventional fill valve used with toilet tanks includes a water inlet pipe having at the upper end thereof a fill valve, a control unit for controlling the fill valve, a slender connecting arm connected to the control unit and a float bowl provided at the end of the arm. Owing to the presence of the slender float arm extending transversely in the toilet tank and the float bowl with a considerably large volume, not only is the valve cumbersome in its external appearance but the valve itself occupies most of the space inside the tank. Among the many disadvantages associated with this type of fill valves, the most important is that, because of the considerable limitation with the volume of the float bowl and the length of the connecting arm inside a typical toilet tank, there has not been possible for the fill valve to produce a strong moment for closing of the valve. Consequently, this results in the force of the valve disc of the fill valve to close the valve seat becoming very weak. Hence, in order to enable the fill valve, after the toilet tank has been filled with water, to be closed with the aforesaid force, the diameter of opening in the valve seat, namely, the valve port, must be made of small diameter, about 5mm. Otherwise, if the valve port were large, the area on the valve disc would increase and water pressure to be borne on the valve seat would also be increased. Again, it is also because the valve port is large and the amount of flow rather low, that under a water pressure of, such as 2 Kg/cm.sup.2, the time for filling a toilet tank of average size still requires more than two minutes and filling is rather slow. In the cases where the toilet must be flushed a number of times to effect a complete flushing, a user has to wait a longer time between flushes until the tank has been sufficiently filled with water, which must be very inconvenient.
It is the purpose of this invention to ameliorate the aforesaid disadvantages in the conventional fill valve and to provide a novel fill valve for use with toilet tanks.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a fill valve for toilet tanks, comprising principally a valve body including a main valve disposed on the upper end of an inlet pipe and applying the difference in pressure to open and close the valve for filling the tank with water and an auxiliary valve, as diaphragm, being actuated by air pressure to direct the opening and closing of the main valve, whereby it is relieved from the use of a float bowl device, the fill valve further devoid of any changes generally associated with the water supply pressure owing to the control by difference in the pressure enabling the valve to be opened and closed effectively and precisely with enough forces and further enlarging the diameter of opening in the valve seat to greatly increase the amount of flow so that the tank can be rapidly filled with water thereby reducing the time required for water filling.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a fill valve for toilet tanks capable of being simplified in construction and reduced in form for having no float bowl nor connecting arm member of rather large shape and also being not easily run into malfunction.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a fill valve for toilet tanks being so configurated that under the auxiliary valve thereof is mounted a telescopic extensible air cylinder capable of guiding in working air and being also extensibly adjustable to function in adjustment of the water level in the tank.
A further object of the invention is to provide a fill valve for toilet tanks, in which the valve assembly is capable of extensibly adjusting the level of water by way of a pair of extensible inlet and outlet pipes having inner and outer water pipes of the upper section and inner and outer water pipes of the lower section in an upper and lower fitting-in arrangement and also capable of adjusting the water level in the tank by way of extensible adjustment of the inlet pipe mounted by the lower end thereof on the upper end of the supply pipe in the tank, the lower water relief pipe provided on the outer circumferential face thereof with a plurality of longitudinal disengaging grooves and transverse retaining channels and the corresponding water relief pipe of the upper section fitted over on the outside provided on the interior thereof with at least one positioning locking piece engageable in the channels, whereby the arrangement allows the upper outside water relief pipe to perform readily vertical movement and positioning through the disengagement of the locking pieces from the channels by merely rotating and lifting or lowering water relief pipe of the upper section to thereby facilitate adjustment of the water level in the tank and also simplify the adjustment construction with attendant advantage to manufacture.